Before SunsetNine Years Later
by Pumpkinjuice01
Summary: This was what came out of an assignment for Philosophy, based on the movies Before Sunset and Before Sunrise. We had to write a nine years later and I am somewhat happy with the outcome. Rating is for difficult subject matter: death, violence, and swears


Okay so this is not your traditional Before Sunrise or Sunset Fanfiction but it was apart of a class assignment. This was my assignment:

"Write a minimum of two pages of dialogue that is strongly influenced by the Christmas story the gift of the Magi that will take place between Jesse and Celine in 2013. Be sure it exhibits "alturism" and some "Stocisim" and is reminiscent of the verbal exchanges from the two films. "

It is written as a script because of how quickly they speak in this movie, to keep in tone with the characters I choose this format, sorry for anyone who doesn't like this type of writing.

* * *

Nine Years Later

_(Celine awakes in a multitude of colours swirling around her. Through the blotchy colours Jesse's smiling face forms however he is very blurry and the colours that form him move uncontrollably.)_

Jesse:Celine._(the name reverberates around them)_

Celine: Jesse? Is it really you? (_She reaches out to him but her arm touches nothing)_ It's not you.

Jesse:_(laughs_) Yeah, it's me, alright.

Celine: No, it's not, I can't touch you.

Jesse: But, it's me. I know this is me. Why do you have to touch me to know that it's me?

Celine: But...it can't be you, can it? I mean sure it sounds like you, looks like you...and it sure laughs like you but...it's not you. You were not just a few micro scopic—

Jesse: Celine, what was I nine years ago?

Celine: Well, you were a man, with strong opinions...

Jesse: I also had memories and ideas. _(silence)_

Celine: Do you still have those ideas and memories?

Jesse: Of course. I still remember how I met you nine years ago in a book shop. Or even eighteen years ago when we first met on a train and I had the greatest night of my life—I can say that now—and I remember, God I still remember, making a rainbow in my backyard and seeing my grandfather standing there.

Celine:_(laughs and it echoes around them. Then she becomes sad) _Then perhaps it is I who is not real.

Jesse: Celine.

Celine: No...I must not be real, I cannot touch you. We cannot touch and that means one of us isn't real. If it is not you than it must be me...

Jesse: Celine, do you remember the day we met?

Celine: Of course.

Jesse: And how painful it was to say goodbye?

Celine: (_sadly)_ Yes.

Jesse: Then...you're real. We just had different concepts of reality before.

_(Celine stares at her hand that disappears and blends into the background)_

Celine: Jesse? What happened nine years ago?

Jesse: We met at a bookshop, we walked around Paris, we talked, we laughed and we cried—a lot. Then we went to your apartment, you sang me a waltz and then you danced...

Celine: Jesse, are you telling me you've forgotten what happened?

Jesse: (_Awkward)_ No, no. You came to the airport with me...and...you were ahead of me, crossing the street...and he was coming so fast that all I could do was push you into the pavement. God, I wanted to apologize, I pushed you so hard. I was so terrified I'd hurt you.

Celine: (_surprised) _Jesse?

Jesse: I know, I know what you're going to say, but that's all I could think about. Even as the truck's front was slamming into my rib cage, cutting open my side. Even though I could feel the blood dripping down my back and sand burning my face as it whipped by for those two blocks that the truck carried me for, the only thing on my mind was, "Oh God, I just pushed Celine" and it was stupid. So stupid, but I meant, we do that, don't we? We're so obsessed with other people that when things should hurt us, they don't. I still can't tell if that is a weakness or a strength with humans but it's something we do.

Celine: that's true. I mean, I could have watched you die so tragically and think, "Ow he pushed me and it hurts" or "Thank God I'm alive." but no, I could only think of Jesse and the truck and the blood and what it was like to die...then I thought of your son and wife and how they'd feel. Their Jesse, the writer, goes to France and is killed. Now, I think, how odd and how nice, that human nature would allow me to cry for a little boy and his mother, who I never knew.

Jesse: Yeah, it is beautiful; painfully beautiful.

Celine: Thank you, Jesse. If it was not for you I would not have lived passed that day.

Jesse: Celine...

Celine: No, you got to finally apologize. Now I'm going to say what I've wanted to say since that day: thank you.

Jesse: No, Celine, I must say thank you to you. I mean you just saved my son's life. You hardly know him, you just saw him at my grave site and protected him from a bullet.

Celine: I saw a bit of you in him. Shit, kids are so fucking stupid. Your son was just visiting his dead father and here comes this big tough thug with a hand gun. She gave no reason, just said that he'd be seeing daddy soon, and then pulled the trigger. Its amazing the amount of thoughts one can have in a second, I had no clue what this kid was thinking of and I saw how scared and confused your son was. I remembered you and I still, I had the concepts of right and wrong in my head. I still thought this girl has no right, she has no right to take your son's life. How fucking conceited can somebody be? To actually think that they should be in control of somebody else's life, most people don't have control over their own lives and this person thinks they can take it from someone else. Dammit, and then they run! They shoot at him, I take the bullet, lie there dying and this girl runs!

Jesse: The world is filled with cowards.

Celine: Yes, and it angers me but I'm sure I was one of them.

Jesse: No, you weren't...I mean we're all cowards but then we've all got this part of us that's a warrior and a genius and an artist...

Celine: So in that retrospect: we're all the same?

Jesse: YES! No..._(agitated sigh)_

Celine: I thought we got all the answers once we died.

Jesse: No, at least not yet. I don't really know that much about death. I know, I know...I've been dead for nine years but not really. I couldn't go on I just stayed here, waiting for you. I couldn't leave without you, what if we get reincarnated and I can't meet you because of a huge age gap that's unethical in our society? Or what if the afterlife is what we make of it and you and I have different interruptions? Celine, I couldn't be with you in that life I'm not going to be without you in the next, whatever it may be.

Celine: That's very sweet...Gosh I can't believe that I'm dead already. I just...the old lady. I'm not an old lady I'm only forty-one. That's not old at all and yet for once in my life I do not feel as if I am watching the scenes play by.

Jesse: Well, maybe you were right, maybe you were watching your life flash before your eyes and that just happened. Between the bullet and right now was your life. Like, okay so you're not old but you had said you felt your whole life that you were that old lady so maybe when you were eight forty-one seemed old. You could never imagine being that age and so you just thought of the person watching as being an old woman. As you aged so did the woman. It's like me, how I said I felt like I was a thirteen year old boy. Well I've had that idea since I was kid, and my dad and grandfather always said that once you get old you're young again, and those two acted like teenagers all the time. So I saw my thirty-two year old self and felt like I was looking at my dad who acted like a thirteen year old. So I thought I was always thirteen.

Celine: So it was our concepts of things that made them seem real to us.

Jesse: Yes.

Celine: I can't believe I'm never going to touch you again.

Jesse:_(His hand is over her) _Well, maybe if we think that we're holding hands than we'll eventually grow to believe it enough to fool ourselves that we can feel each other._(They hold each other hands but seem dissatisfied, however they do not say this.) _

Celine: It's so weird, you gave up your life so that I could live and then I gave up mine so that you could live through your son. But we still just ended up in the same spot, together, but dead.

Jesse: Well, its true that when you saved my son's life you saved his memory of me as well but you also created a new one. I don't think he could ever forget the blonde, French, woman who saved his life. I wonder if he'll read my book and put two and two together.

Celine: Well...I'm sure he'll figure it out one day. Even if he doesn't he'll get here and see an old lady and a thirteen year old boy holding hands...and I think it will click in.

Jesse: You're probably right.

_(Fade out.)_

So the gift that i thought both of these two great people could give of themselves was their lives.


End file.
